How to use Github to land a Job

How to use Github to land a Job?

CENTER FOR ENTERPRISE TECHNOLOGY ADVANCEMENT·WEDNESDAY, MAY 10, 2017

GitHub itself isn’t much more than a social network like Facebook or Flickr. You build a profile, upload projects to share and connect with other users by “following” their accounts. And while many users store programs and code projects, there’s nothing preventing you from keeping text documents or other file types in your project folders to show off. Here is a sample GitHub account.

Sample GitHub Account.

You may already have a dozen other social media accounts, but here’s why you should be on GitHub anyway: it’s got the best Terms of Service agreement out of the bunch. If you check out Section F of the terms, you’ll see that GitHub does everything in its power to ensure that you retain total ownership of any projects you upload to the site:

“We claim no intellectual property rights over the material you provide to the Service. Your profile and materials uploaded remain yours.”

What’s more, you can actually use GitHub without knowing ANY code at all. You don’t really need a tutorial to sign up and click around. OK now you made and account, now what?

If you start learning anything new related to Computer Science, chances are it will involve some programming because that’s the language Computers speak. You will start making simple programs, gradually you will build on your knowledge to create more sophisticated programs, and finally applications.

GitHub provides you a social space where you share anything from simple code to the overtly complex applications. We have entered a “prove it” economy in which codified skills are currency. It’s driving a revolution in how education is constructed, delivered, used — and credentialed. By sharing your computer science projects, you make your portfolio, which is used by potential employers to get an idea of your skills. So the more the effort you put in maintaining your GitHub account, the better the chances of landing a job.

It’s not just about sharing your code and projects, once you register on GitHub, you can follow other people whose work interests you. For e.g. if you are interesting in becoming a Data Scientist, you can follow the people who are experts in data science, and learn from their work on GitHub.

Some recruiters use GitHub to study a candidate’s interests and skills after they’ve identified a possible match. Others use it to seek out tech pros with very specific skills, or who’ve shown an interest in projects that are similar to their company’s work. For example, Casey Kugler, a tech recruiter for the Center for Open Science in Charlottesville, Va., follows users who have engaged with his organization’s repositories or communicated with members of its tech team. Such users, he noted, have demonstrated a direct interest in the Center’s projects.

So even if you are a beginner, it makes a lot of sense to make a GitHub account to start sharing your code, and learn from millions of developers out there till you become an expert yourself, and land your dream Tech Job.

Center for Enterprise Technology Advancement (CETA) helps people who have no technology skills to learn sought after technology skills. Every course offered at involves making a project, which is shared on students GitHub Profile. Once the students complete four courses of Nanodegree, a Capstone Project has to be completed which involves applying all the knowledge from the four courses of Nanodegree to create an application. All this goes to students GitHub account to prove student’s mastery at skills to potential Employers. For more information, please visit our website at ceta.umt.edu.pk